And so the story goes
by Frisk15
Summary: Steve will have a long time to think about how that one particular chase went South. / AU drabble involving sharp-toothed things that go bump in the night. / To be expanded.
1. Scuttled

Written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 6, this fills my _attacked by a creature_ square. 

* * *

SCUTTLED 

It started out like so many other horror stories. "One minute I was doing such-and-such, and then this _thing_ came out of nowhere and the next moment ..." Yeah, well, OK, maybe not _exactly_ like other stories, but it came pretty close. Closer than he would've liked, and definitely closer than he ever expected. Too close, actually.

Because in keeping with the popular story lines, "one minute" he'd been Lieutenant-Commander Steven J. McGarrett, United States Navy SEAL - awarded with so many _been-there-done-that-and-survived_ badges that he was hung like a fucking Christmas tree whenever he was wearing his dress uniform - chasing down an insurgent through ever narrowing alleyways and winding streetlets.

Chasing the suspect but never really quite _gaining_ on him, breath coming in harsh gasps as he was giving it his all, nearly puking out his guts with the sheer effort of it, becoming increasingly frustrated by the fact that, no matter how hard he pumped his leg muscles, the distance between them remained the same.

Then there had been a quiet, taunting laughter, a flash of a face looking back at him, actually _smiling_ and Hey! there had been something seriously _wrong_ with that smile, all teeth and bloodless lips, and just as he was about to just give up and head back to his team, somebody - something? - had suddenly rushed at him and quicker than you could say _Hello?_ there had been a sharp pain and he had been enveloped by darkness.

And just like the stories went, "the next moment" he regained consciousness crawling through a dark, filthy alley in a classified location somewhere in the Middle East. And the way he was feeling, well ... let's say the old familiar term FUBAR wasn't even coming close. Not even in its vicinity, hell, not even in the same _universe!_

Which all basically ceased to be important the minute he started evaluating himself for injuries and tried checking his pulse. Tried. Because it wasn't there. And when he desperately tried checking again and _again_ he noticed something else, something which would normally take his breath away, except, yeah, that _too_ seemed to be missing somehow.

So, no pulse, no breath, and that one other thing he noticed was that his finger nails were no longer up to par with military regulations. No Sir. To be honest, he was pretty sure some superior officer would only need to take one look at what was sprouting from the end of his finger tips and yell for a Flexcut power tool. Either that, or run away screaming.

He was pretty sure the latter would prove to be the smarter move.

Because the worst thing about the whole situation was that all of the above paled to a whimpering insignificance when compared to the hunger he was feeling. And it wasn't a _shit-I-could-eat-a-burger-or-two_ kinda hunger, no, he was HUNGRY. Capital stuff. Like, _the-first-cow-comes-near-me-is-_ _ **dead**_ kinda hunger. Which, considering his location, would probably equate to eating a whole camel. Easily.

The thought about the camel involuntarily made him lick his lips, which was the moment he cut his tongue on his teeth. His _incisors_ , to be more specific, which seemed to have elongated. Grown quite large, actually. When he swiped a finger over his mouth, pulling it away to stare at the red smear from his bleeding tongue, the image of eating a camel suddenly transformed into something else. Shifted from devouring the animal's flesh to drinking it dry like a bottle of Longboard.

Which was the exact same moment Lieutenant-Commander Steven J. McGarrett realized that his Navy SEAL career in all likelihood had just been scuttled. Forever. And, if he analyzed the situation correctly, that would be exactly how long he had to reminisce about his years as a frog man.

Forever. Meaning, all of Eternity.

Which then suddenly gave a whole new meaning to that famous SEAL motto, _The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday._ Yeah, yesterday, and the day before that, and _every_ fucking day before he found himself stuck in that Middle Eastern alley without a pulse, without some sort of heart beat going on, was definitely going to be ranked as the easiest part of his life.

Getting shot, getting beat up, suffering from heat or cold or painful _oh-sheesh-I-need-to-change-my-underwear_ cramps resulting from drinking bad jungle water ... all of that would be considered easy from now on, just a stroll in the park.

Because somebody, or rather some _thing_ , had turned him into a vampire.

Crap!


	2. Home Port

HOME PORT 

Getting a lift back to Hawaii had been easy; ridiculously easy actually. All he had to do was sneak into the makeshift morgue at the airfield, dump one of the corpses out of the many body bags, and crawl in. No fear of discovery because, well, it wasn't as if his _breathing_ was going to give him away. He still habitually went through the motions of drawing air in and expelling it out of his lungs, but that was more about trying to keep sane, trying to keep a _grip_ on the whole situation, than it was absolute necessity.

He didn't need air. Nope. A fact which would have come in real handy had he still been a SEAL, because the maximum time of being able to hold his breath back then had been just short of six minutes. And he had been damn proud of that, too.

These days though ...

He had tried how long he could go without breathing, and when his watch stated that, oh, over half an hour had passed without his body actually _screaming_ for oxygen, he had freaked out. Because that, that shit just wasn't _natural!_ Which, of course, was exactly the case. Not being natural anymore. Being some sort of ... unnatural freak; being _undead._

The thought that Fate had played a nasty little trick on him had crossed his mind several times already. After all, when he was still, you know, _alive_ , one of his little pleasures had been to read vampire novels. Ever since reading Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire he had been totally smitten by the genre. There was just something very enticing, something nearly _erotic_ about the way vampires bit people's necks, then sucked them dry.

However, there was _nothing_ erotic about draining rats and other assorted rodents, catching them in the shadows of the same little alleys which had proved to be his undoing. The way their hairs had a tendency to stick between his teeth when he bit into them was just appalling. And he absolutely _hated_ the taste of their blood, gagging almost every time the salty warm fluid would hit his taste buds.

Because strangely enough, his senses seemed to have remained intact. They actually seemed to have become enhanced, almost like those of The Six Million Dollar Man, his father's favorite TV series which he had forced him to watch when there was a re-run. Not just his taste; his sight, his hearing, it all seemed to have increased a hundred, even a thousand fold. He could hear a human's heart beating from afar, almost sense the blood coursing through their veins.

Blood.

It had become the main ingredient, the _Numero Uno_ item on his menu, simply because he couldn't do without. It had taken him three days before that fact really got through to him. Three days in which he had become progressively weaker, unable to walk, eventually crawling through the shadows.

He had nearly lost control when, out of nowhere, a young girl of about six had almost run into him. The rapid flutter of her heart, the *whoosh* *whoosh* of her blood racing through her veins as she stared at him, big doe-like eyes wide with both fright and something akin to curiosity; it had nearly been his undoing.

He'd felt his teeth, sorry, _fangs_ almost pop out of his jaw in anticipation of burying themselves in that small, graciously curved neck, and for a second his vision had completely focused on the jugular beating a steady rhythm, enticing him, calling him in a soft, steady voice to come and ...

 _Fuck!_ he'd thought. No, _suck_ his blood starved body tried to correct him, but he'd managed to restrain himself, had growled at the girl and watched her run off, fear strangling the scream which he'd been certain would erupt from her mouth. Her silence had bought him the time necessary to get out of the alley, and when he managed to crawl behind some wooden crates stacked next to a dilapidated house, he had grabbed the first rat stupid enough to come too close.

That first experience of biting down into something which was _alive_ , something warm and struggling with all its might to escape, something which _squeak-ed_ with its last breath just before he had drained its life had been, well ... gross.

No feeling of empowerment there; no ecstasy, and _definitely_ no erotic feeling. He'd flung the rat's body as far away from him as he could, leaning against the wall still containing the day's heat, working hard to not regurgitate the small meal. Yeah, even gross pretty much was an understatement. _Disgusting_ , that was a far better description.

However, it wasn't the - imagine that - dwindling population of rodents that was driving him to go back home. No, it was the ever present, all pervasive scent of _garlic_ , that cloying, sickly semi-sweet smell that rushed at him even before he could scent a live person in his vicinity. It was omni-present, drowning out the other smells of spices like ginger, or cinnamon.

Never mind that it had recently made him break out in hives whenever he got near it, or accidentally touched it. He had drawn the conclusion that garlic wasn't so much fatal to vampires, as much as they were just totally disgusted by it. And possibly allergic as well. He'd been an avid garlic eater when he was, well, breathing, but now, now it made him want to run and find a nice, deep bucket so he could heave and heave and ...

So garlic no longer had a spot on his menu; scratched right off, as it were. And the fact that it was all around him had suddenly made him long for his home, made him ache for Hawaii. A feeling which came as a huge surprise because, well, because it was a _feeling_. And he hadn't had too many of those ever since he had stopped being human.

Pretty logical, really; feelings were coupled with emotions, which in turn were fueled by the quickening of a heart, the tingling of nerves. And that wasn't happening anymore. All quiet on that front.

But now, now he felt something akin to being homesick. So he broke into the morgue, snuck into the body bag, and before he knew it he was flying high in the sky at several thousand feet, speeding towards the island he had last seen well over four years ago.

In between the short cat naps he took - because hey, even a vampire sometimes needed to give his mind a break - he wondered how his father would react to his, ehm ... altered state. Wondered if the old man would react any better than he had when he had caught his one and only son making out with a fellow football player in the locker room, right after a winning game, years ago.

That particular incident hadn't gone over too well, despite the fact that he had desperately yelled _I like girls as well!_ at his father's fast disappearing back as the man stomped out of the locker room. Next thing he knew, he'd been on a plane to the mainland with his Uncle Joe's address in his pocket, and given firm instruction not to set foot back on the island unless he'd proven himself to be a _man_.

When he'd come back, eventually, he'd been a Navy SEAL. A _real_ man. All coiled muscle and rigid stature and the ability to kill a man by spitting him in the eye just so. Of course, he also still _liked_ men, but that was his own little secret. And maybe that of a certain midshipman who had bit his own fist into a bloody mess as he rocked through a stealthily given but nevertheless mind blowing orgasm, but hey, he was sure _that_ fellow wouldn't spill the beans.

Not because the midshipman wasn't keen on being kicked out of the Navy, but basically because head-butting an erroneously thrown live grenade during an exercise just wasn't conductive to being alive.

So his little secret was quite safe, and his father was prouder than a damn peacock when he saw his son again after so many years. Too bad that the years on the mainland had taught him to build walls around his emotions, structures so high and dense even his mother's tearful frustration at trying to get her son to open up to her failed miserably.

Contact with his parents had been minimal at best; a quick call to say _Hi, how you're doing_ and _Yes Sir, I've been promoted again_ the only signs of life he was willing to offer them. All the while keeping his true self from showing through, keeping a tight reign on his emotions. After several years, the routine turned into a habit, and the habit into character set in stone.

Lieutenant-Commander Steven J. McGarrett had become an emotionally stunted _bad ass_ , first out of necessity, then out of the experience that life was, really, much easier to handle if people didn't have access to those buttons which could be pushed to invoke, well ... responses. The death of an insurgent no longer bothered him, and the demise of a fellow team mate would be mourned with a few bottles of cheap, illegally imported beer, after which it was back to business as usual.

It resulted in him becoming an _excellent_ leader, a man not afraid to lead his team into the hairiest and scariest of situations, his men following in his footsteps as he would always be the first to step into conflict. He was a lean, mean fighting machine, and the ginormous emotional chip on his shoulder, the ever-present pain of being unable to be who he _really_ was, had been shoved down deep and remained well hidden underneath the straps of automatic weapons and body armor.

His parents had never found out. Well, maybe his mother had _suspected_ the transition from the teenage son her husband had sent away into the man that had returned to the island wasn't all natural, but either she never dared confront him with it, or thought it better to leave well enough alone. His father, though ... nah, the man had never suspected a thing.

So he was quite curious about how the old man would react when he showed up an even _meaner_ fighting machine than he was before. Wondered what he'd say when he finally got to shake his hand again. Imagined the look on his face when his fangs started showing and ...

Of course he'd never get to have that particular experience, as the first conversation he overheard when he finally crawled out of the plane, carefully slinking down out of the wheel-well, was the one between two mechanics, discussing that day's top news event: the burial of retired HPD Deputy John McGarrett, murdered not even a week before.

Life - even for the Undead - sometimes just wasn't fair.


	3. Going for anchor

GOING FOR ANCHOR 

He'd been hiding, waiting in the shadows, avoiding the day's blazing sun while hunting for Polynesian rats. The two he finally managed to catch tasted _delicious_ compared to their Middle Eastern cousins, their blood sugary sweet as a result of them foraging in the sugarcane fields surrounding the military airfield.

The decision to come back home had been a good one at least as far as food was concerned; it tasted better, and not having the urge to throw up immediately after eating was a _huge_ bonus.

He'd been making his way towards his parents' house ever since the sun started to go down, slinking in between buildings until he reached the edge of the vegetation bordering on the beach. It wasn't as if he'd spontaneously combust when exposed to sunlight - a fact which he discovered himself back in the Middle East - but the bright light did render his sight to almost nil, his hyper-dilated pupils geared towards nocturnal activities.

His skin, turned pale from staying out of the sun, wasn't too keen on getting exposed either; no smoke or sizzling if a ray hit him, but plenty of blistering and heat rash. Stuff that didn't happen before, well, before _this_ ; didn't happen when his skin was still a nicely tanned shade of dark brown and he'd spend every possible moment enjoying the sun's heat on his skin.

So the perks of being Undead, as far as Steve was concerned, were basically nil, nothing, zilch, _nada_.

Now, having cautiously stepped into the warm sand of the beach, sand which was exactly the same yet so very different from that in the Middle East, he stood staring out over the sea. It had been a long time since he'd been here; his last visit home was to bury his mother, giving her body - emaciated and exhausted from the short but intense battle with the cancer which had seemed to eat her alive - a final resting place in the earth she loved so much.

Never did he imagine that it would also be the last time he saw his father alive. The old man had stood stoically beside him, never shedding a tear, hanging on to his _Look-At-Me, I'm A Real Man_ attitude with the last shreds of dignity and self-control as the coffin was lowered into the ground. He'd loved his wife, Steve never doubted that; but he had _hated_ having to care for her, having to watch her lose pound by pound of humanity, until she faded away into the afterlife.

When Steve returned to duty two days later, his father had clasped him on the shoulder just before he got on the plane. "Don't get into any trouble, son." He'd given his father a bewildered look, on the verge of pointing out that his whole career was basically _steeped_ in trouble, then decided against it.

"No Sir, I won't."

And that had been it, had been the last time McGarrett Senior and McGarrett Junior had spoken to each other. There had been no opportunities after that to call home, or rather, Steve hadn't _taken_ the opportunity to do so. In the past, any awkward phone call between father and son had been alleviated by being able to speak to his mother, to have an actual meaningful conversation, to talk about friends, interests.

All that had been buried with her. 

* * *

Standing there, memories flooding back, he felt the sudden pull of the sea, which - if he understood the things he has learned about being a vampire correctly - was very strange indeed. Vampires were not supposed to _like_ the sea, could not even _cross_ it unless carried along by boat, and yet here he was, a _creature of the night_ , fighting the urge to step into the salty water.

Maybe it was some deeply buried wish to commit suicide; well, OK, a wish to _end_ this current and semi-approximation of life.

He fought the urge until he stopped doing so, then moves towards the edge of the water after checking to see whether anybody was about. The light of the rising moon flickered over the water, almost hypnotizing him, and he hesitated for just a moment, then started to take off his shoes. He had no idea what to expect - would he experience intense pain, or simply melt and drift away into a tiny puddle? - but he forged ahead and stuck his feet into the water.

The feeling was ... _magical_! Immediately, memories of plowing through the sea, swimming mile after mile, diving down to see coral or - oh yeah, that too - place explosives, came rushing through his mind, and he abandoned all caution and arched into an oncoming wave. He swam.

 _Swam_!

When he wasn't reduced to a puddle of goo within the first few minutes, when he dared to let go of the feeling of his imminent demise being just around the proverbial corner, he swam mile after mile after mile, enjoying the sensation of the water flowing along his body as it cut through the waves.

Then, finally, he decided to stop - a consciously made _decision_ instead of a necessity dictated by sore muscles and a sense of breathlessness - and the first thing he noticed when he bobbed peacefully along with the waves was his _reflection_.

Now _that,_ that was weird!

He was absolutely _positive_ that he hadn't seen his own image ever since being bitten, was certain that he'd had no reflection while still in the Middle East. Staring down, he saw the rippling image of himself staring back up at him, noticed the pale skin, the color almost matching that of the moon, his hair much, _much_ longer than he remembered it had been.

Maybe it grew as fast as his nails.

Frowning, he decided that one of the first things he needed was a hair cut so he wouldn't look like some half-assed hippie anymore. Nodding, his reflection agreeing with his decision, he ducked back down underneath the waves and started heading back to shore. Not that he was tired, but he had come here for a purpose.

He wanted to go home. 

* * *

It took him a while to get to the house, and the first thing that assaulted his senses was the smell; the dark, lingering odor of old blood, his father's blood. Now, it wasn't as if he and the old man had been able to see eye to eye, obviously, but hey, this had been his _father_ , and if anybody had the right to kill him it would be Steve! Not some - he sniffed the air - some ... oh shit. _Really?_

The scent that traveled up his nostrils was reminiscent of something he'd become familiar with in the Middle East, something that - like him - preferred the dark of night but - unlike him - had no qualms about taking human lives. Something which was older than the New World's legends, even older than the Old World ones. It was a supernatural being the Arabs called _qutrub_.

 _Werewolf_ !

Now how in the hell did his father manage to get involved with one of those?

He moved around his father's desk, catching whiffs of the murderer's - the _werewolf's_ \- scent, pinpointing the places where he'd touched the wood, trying to figure out the What  & Why of the creature's interest in the old man.

Suddenly, another scent trailed up his nostrils, like lazy smoke curling up from a cigar. Just for a second, he wondered at the strangeness of not having noticed it before, the aura a bewildering mixture of manly cologne and cleaning or hair products, coupled with - was that right? - something that reminded him of the camping trips his father used to take him on when little.

He killed the thought almost as soon as it entered his head; there was something far more urgent he needed to attend to than trying to discern the different ingredients of a scent.

He was not alone!


End file.
